Category: Baseball

It probably isn’t the way that Ryne Sandberg envisioned how he will get his first Major League managing job, taking over the Philadelphia Phillies on an interim basis for the final six weeks of the season, but it is a testament to his perseverance in pursuit of the goal.

This was the story as he began that odyssey back in 2007 with the Peoria Chiefs. He talked openly then about wanting to manage in the big leagues and took the avenue of starting from the ground up in the low-minors. He did everything the Chicago Cubs asked of him. Two seasons with the Chiefs, one in Double-A Tennessee, another in Triple-A Iowa. Except the one question he wanted the most, to manage or even coach the club in Wrigley Field, never came.

So Sandberg went back to the organization where he began in the minor leagues, spending two years managing the Phillies Triple-A team for two years before making the jump this season as the Phillies third base coach. On Friday, he finally got the chance. (Full disclosure here: I’m a Phillies fan having grown up on the New Jersey side of the city.)

There are things that stick with me from his two seasons with the Chiefs, which coincidentally were my first two seasons on the beat.

Every day the last round of batting practice was the “wind-check round” in which players were encouraged to swing for the fences. This was most often with ‘American Pie’ playing over the speakers, a daily request from Sandberg and hitting coach Julio Garcia.

The ejections, and there were plenty of them, that showed just how competitive he could be. Just like the time he lit into a player after the Chiefs were no-hit in 2008 by Burlington for hitting the post-game spread too quickly.

Never once in the two years that I dealt with him on an almost daily basis during the season did he ever play the Hall of Fame card although that would have been so easy to do.

I’ll have more on Sandberg’s jump to the big chair in Sunday’s With the Chiefs column.

After the strong pitching performance by Kyle Helisek for the Chiefs on Wednesday there wasn’t enough room to get into a couple of a couple of nice plays he turned in the field.

Most notable was an out on a slow grounder by Carter Bell up the first baseline for the third out of the sixth inning.

Helisek raced over and threw out Bell from in foul ground. As a lefty, Helisek had to get under control before even getting to the ball.

“(First baseman Jordan) Walton did nice job getting to the foul side of the baseline,” Chiefs manager Dann Bilardello said. “Walton makes that play because he sets up on foul side of base so it was a nice play by both of those guys.”

Helisek also fielded a more routine bunt to the first base side of the mound to retire Breland Almadova for the first out of the second inning.

Fielding is something that Helisek takes some pride in.

“Those are the outs you need to get,” Helisek said. “You expect the defense to make plays behind you so you need to do your part too.”

Ben O’Shea makes his first start for the Chiefs tonight against South Bend. Bilardello, who had O’Shea last year in Batavia, called the lefty a strike thrower.

O’Shea was 3-1 with a 3.76 ERA in State College before being promoted on Wednesday. He has walked just five in 26 1/3 innings while striking out 21.

The Peoria Chiefs made four complementary roster moves including the promotion of right-handed releiver Corey Baker to high-A Palm Beach.

Starting pitcher Josh Lucas was sent to extended spring training. Replacing the pair are relievers Thomas Lee and Chris Thomas.

“I think we lost an all-star in Baker,” Chiefs manager Dann Bilardello said.
Baker went 1-1 with ath 1.85 ERA in 14 appearances with the Chiefs. He receieved word of the promotion after he worked 2 1/3 innings in the Chiefs 11-8 win over Clinton on Monday.

“You play this game to keep moving up so (getting the news) was awesome,” Baker said. “It will be tough leaving this team, but I want to keep pitching well and moving up.”

Lucas was 0-4 with a 6.53 in four starts and never got much help from the Chiefs offense, who scored no runs in the 20 2/3 innings Lucas was on the hill.

Lee went 4-4 with a 4.03 ERA in 16 games last season at Johnson City. Thomas was 3-0 with a 1.69 ERA split between the Gulf Coast League Cardinals and short-season Batavia.

With the Chiefs playing two doubleheaders in as many days it was time to go digging through the record book.

The back-to-back twin bills are the first since the 2007 season when the Chiefs played a pair against Wisconsin at the stadium now known as Dozer Park. The Chiefs took three of the four games from the Timber Rattlers.

The Chiefs have previously played 12 sets of consecutive day doubleheaders, counting the lone three-in-three (more on that in minute) as two separate back-to-back affairs. Of the 12, only four were in two different cities.

Now, about that hellacious stretch from May 19-21, 1995. The Chiefs swept both doubleheader at home against Clinton and then split against Springfield in Vonachen Stadium to close it.

With another doubleheader looming on Thursday in Kane County, the Chiefs will play three doubleheaders in seven days. However, that 1995 team can scoff at this bunch. The 1995 Chiefs had to play five in eight days with two doubleheaders against Burlington on May 25 and 26. Stretching it out even further, the Chiefs played seven doubleheaders in two weeks that month.

It’s the report filed by Kenosha manager Duffy Dyer at the end of the season on the 1985 Chiefs. That team, of course, featured Greg Maddux and Rafael Palmiero.

It’s worth noting that Dyer said Maddux wasn’t cut out to be a starter and would top out at Triple-A.

From the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

As for tonight’s game, the Chiefs go for their first series sweep of the season. (Officially in the record book, they swept Lake County in a one-game set but since Game 2 ended in a tie it’s tough to say it was a sweep).

What has stood out for the Chiefs has been the pitching this series. Jenkins, obviously, but also Kurt Heyer’s rain-shortened start on Friday and the bullpen work by Zach Petrick, Joe Donofrio and Michael Aldrete in relief of Heyer were sharp.

Fort Wayne came into the series as the second-best hitting team in the league but have hit just .117 (7-for-60) in the first two games of the series.